Down With the Sickness
by the ersatz diplomat
Summary: Even wizards get the flu. And no, there's not a potion for that. Quit asking questions.
1. Chapter 1

_The Dresden Files/Codex Alera is copyright Jim Butcher. This story is licensed under the Creative Commons as derivative, noncommercial fiction._

Crossposted at the multi-fandom Day_by_Drabble community on Livejournal for the April Showers Drabblethon.

**Prompt:** #3, _Fever_

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><p>The sound of the door being shoved open woke me up – not that I could've done anything about it, being half-dead on the couch, same as I'd been for the past forty-eight hours. I was surrounded by a veritable siege wall of Kleenex boxes, though, so I rolled over, pulled a blanket over my head and hoped for the best.<p>

"Harry, you idiot."

The intruder flicked the blanket off my face and I stared up at a pair of baby blues, blonde hair and a grin.

"Wakey-wakey," said Karrin Murphy, cop chick, leaning over the sofa to look at me upside down. "Hands off snakey."

"Urgh," I said. Tried to say. "I'm dying, here."

"No, you're not." There was a clink of glass and a sniffing sound. "Jack Daniels?"

"Didn't have any Nyquil," I croaked.

"So," she said, folding her arms across her chest, sitting down on the armrest of the couch. "Did you kill that bird before you tried to wear it as a hat?"

Right. I hadn't shaved, showered or generally moved in almost two days. She'd seen me in worse states, though, but this was somehow more embarrassing. Tough P.I. wizards aren't supposed to get knocked on their mystical butts by a _virus_. Jeez.

Murph put a hand against my forehead. An icy, icy hand, like Antarctica dipped in liquid nitrogen and put into cryogenic storage. I flinched, covered in instantaneous all-over goosebumps, and tried not to scream like a little girl.

After a second or two, it felt freaking _heavenly_. I caught her wrist and held her hand there for a little longer.

Not too long. A nice, platonic thirty seconds.

Then she patted my shoulder with a business-like "Sit up," and pushed one of those big bottles of blue-flavored Gatorade into my hands. The lid was already loosened. I drank. Mmm, blue.

"You could've called me, you know," she said, quietly.

I'd wanted to. Almost did, a few times. But I wasn't about to tell her that. Instead, I said,

"The phone is waaaay over there," and gestured weakly to the rotary-dial monster sitting at the opposite end of the couch.

"As I suspected – the dreaded Man-flu," Murph said to Mouse as he padded over, doggy tail wagging in affirmation, "A much deadlier strain of the regular flu, which I had last week. Looks like we caught it in time."

"Thanks for the diagnosis, Dr. House."

"I see it hasn't affected the snark centers of his brain."

Mouse made a huffing sound that might have been disbelief, settling his puppy chin on my knee.

"You're right. What brain?"

Karrin sat down next to me and started digging through a brown grocery bag, producing a package of saltine crackers, a bottle of Nyquil, two deli containers of soup and plastic spoons. And, bless her heart, a cold can of Coke. I took it from her and held it against my forehead as the room kind of…tilted.

"Murph, you're an angel."

She rolled her eyes at me, but I know the truth.

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><p>review?<p> 


	2. Chapter 2

Based on the Day by Drabble Not-So-Bleak Midwinter Prompt #2: a picture of a man and a dog in the snow

For JRush, whose reviews make me feel all warm and fuzzy where my heart's supposed to be. Don't worry, folks, I've been out-of-commission for a while, but I'm back in the game and working on _Unfinished Business._

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><p>My dog loves the snow. And I mean <em>really<em>. Though, I suppose if I had a fur coat and was from Tibet or somewhere, I'd probably love it too.

But I don't, and I'm not, so I'm currently freezing my skinny wizard ass off, sitting on a bench at the dog park, watching Mouse and a German shepherd chase a squirrel between the leafless trees.

I was the only human around, save for a few girls in tracksuits. They and their bite-sized, beribboned dogs avoided me like the figurative plague. Wasn't surprising. I was pretty sure that between the big black coat, the unwashed hair and the violent shivering, I looked even scarier than usual.

That didn't stop the petite blonde who sat down next to me. Her cheeks were pink from the cold and her hair was windblown, but Karrin Murphy, like the similarly cute and lethal honey badger, don't care.

She had a paper cup, I noticed, as I gave her a sideways look over the upturned collar of my coat. Steam wisped out the vent in the plastic lid.

"Caramel apple cider," Murph said, taking a sip and making a pleased little noise that—well, it went a long way toward warming me up. Not that I was going to tell her about it. "Feeling any better today?"

I sniffled. I had made it off the couch and down the street today, but I was still borderline pathetic.

"Christ, Dresden. Go to a doctor."

"Can't afford it," I said hoarsely, then coughed. "No insurance."

I had spent more money than I actually had trying to keep the docs from amputating my burned left hand. It had wiped out what miniscule savings I'd manage to scrape together and, of course, the only case I'd gotten in the past few weeks happened to be the flu.

…Which I'm pretty sure I'd caught from Murph, who had to be forcibly sent home from work the week before by, well, everyone else there.

Thomas must have told her where I was. The sky had been blue that morning, but it was overcast now, and felt colder than it probably was. Karrin watched, smiling, as Mouse blitzed past in four-wheel drive, flinging snow everywhere. I watched her drink her caramel apple cider and wondered how much of it I could get down between grabbing it from her hand and getting my face broken by her fist.

I didn't get the chance to find out because she turned toward me, her expression contemplative.

"Don't you know, like, a witch doctor or something?"

I stared at her, blinking.

"Just a suggestion," Murph said as she held out a second paper cup.

"Oh, thank god." I seized it. "I was about to knock you out and steal yours."

"In your weakened state? I'd like to see you try."

"I will end you, wench," I growled. And then sniffled again.

"Uh-huh," she said with a smirk, and whistled for Mouse. The big dog bounded toward us.

I took a tentative sip and choked. "Glah! What the _hell_ is this?"

"Echinacea."

It tasted godawful, so it was probably really healthy. "Are you sure it's not poisonous?"

"Reasonably sure," she said, clipping Mouse's leash to his collar and scratching behind his ears. "Come on, my car's across the street. You'll catch your death out here."

"You sound awfully certain about that." I peered through the hole in the lid. The contents were a murky, sickly green. "Where are we going?"

"My house."

"Why?"

"Because, Harry," she said, as if it were perfectly obvious, "Much like a small child, or a suitcase at the airport, you shouldn't be left unattended. And you shouldn't be out here in the cold."

"Mouse needed to run," I protested, stopping in the middle of the icy street.

"I've got a yard." She caught my sleeve and pulled. "You're coming with me."

"Every time you say that, I end up in handcuffs. Not that I'm complaining."

Murph handed me her cup and pushed me toward the passenger door of the Saturn. I made it into the car and somehow buckled up with one useless hand and the other numb from cold, and may have accidentally switched the drinks around when I attempted to put them in the cupholders. Possibly. At any rate, mine tasted immensely better the next time I took a sip.

After wedging Mouse into the back seat, Murphy got in, keyed the ignition and pulled out into traffic. I didn't even have the energy to make the stereo squawk properly, and we went several blocks in silence before she reached for her drink. She brought it to her lips and then stopped and gave me a sideways glare.

"Dammit, Dresden."

"Classic blunders, Murph." I settled back into my seat and took a long pull from the paper cup, already feeling sleepy in the warmth of the car. "You fell for one. Oh, man. This is _really_ good."

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><p>To be continued! Reviews fuel my soul. :D<p> 


	3. Chapter 3

_Author's Note:_ Sincerest apologies about the delay between chapters of my fics, I've been quite ill myself, and I don't mean the flu. All I can say is, Dresden Files readers are the best readers who don't send threatening messages over delays, you guys _rock_.

This chapter is longer because a) I felt bad about the delay and b) I didn't have to write it under drabble constrictions, hope you guys don't mind the break from style. Though I did use the** prompt of a picture of candy conversation hearts,** but that was like...this time last year and now I feel _really_ bad.

I have the next chapter, several other stories and chapters of stories under construction and open on my desktop right now, bear with me.

Brace yourselves for FLIRTING. Harry is never too sick not to snark. Jeez.

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><p>Murph's place. What can I say? It's comfy and cozy and so surreally <em>cute<em> that I always have to remind myself it's the home of a woman who makes her own bullets.

She reached up, grabbed the collar of my duster and dragged it off of me. It had started to snow again between the time we left the dog park and arriving at her house, and a flurry of flakes drifted from my shoulders toward the floor.

"Karrin Murphy," I said, gesturing grandly with the hand that wasn't in the sleeve she was pulling on. "Because foreplay is for amateurs."

"Sit." She pushed me towards a recliner and I sort of collapsed into it. Mouse nudged the lever on the side of the chair with his nose and it unfolded, and then Murph tossed a blue plaid blanket over me. "Stay."

"Roll over. Play dead," I grumbled. "Good boy, Harry."

"Come on, Mouse, let's go outside."

Mouse was wearing a doggy grin as she scratched his ears. My dog gets a lot more action than I do. Makes sense – I'm nowhere near that cuddly.

He gave me a guilty look.

"Go ahead," I said, and he padded out of the room on her heels.

I was sniffling again and huddled under the blanket when she came back.

"Oh, lord," Karrin said, and dropped a box of Kleenex in my hands.

"You buy the good kind."

"Wouldn't it be more cost-effective to just get a girlfriend?" She grinned and handed me a Gatorade and two little green gel pills.

"Ouch. You know, it's not absolutely necessary to drug me if you want to take advantage of me," I said, attempting to open the bottle. "I'm down for whatever."

"In your state, 'whatever' would probably kill you."

"C'mon, Murph. Do the right thing and put me out of my misery."

"Nope." She sat down on the arm of the sofa and picked up the remote. "Not done making fun of you yet. You're not going to blow up my TV, are you? I don't want a repeat of what happened at the World Series thing last year, Dresden. Your picture is still on the wall of People Not Allowed in that bar."

I shrugged. "Too tired. Barely managed to get the wards back online when we left."

Murph gave me a worried look and scanned through a few channels before settling on a drama about two brothers who drive around the country hunting monsters.

"You watch _this?"_ I asked.

"I point out what they do wrong. Like that with the vampires? That would _never_ work in real life." Karrin put a hand on my forehead, frowned and tossed another blanket over me before settling down on the couch. It wasn't long before I was down for the count.

A hand on my shoulder gently shook me awake. Maybe it speaks for the amount of time I spend alone, but another person waking me up kind of freaked me out. I twitched. The recliner almost flipped over.

"Call the chief," Murphy said to Mouse, who blinked. "We've got a live one."

There was a TV tray in front of me and a bowl of suspiciously homemade-looking chicken soup.

"Eat," she said, pointing commandingly toward the spoon.

"This doesn't have arsenic in it, too?"

"It was echinacea." She sat down on the close end of the sofa with her own dinner and pulled her feet up underneath her. "And no. Recipe didn't call for it."

"You can cook?" I asked. Okay, demanded. Bewilderedly.

Murph narrowed her eyes at me.

"It's just… cooking definitely isn't something I can picture you doing. Not that I picture you _doing_ anything. 'Cause I don't—"

"Eat," she ordered again. "Gonna need your strength to dig yourself out of that hole."

I did. It was pretty good. Although most homemade food is good, considering my diet consists mainly of things that end in –O's and come in brightly colored, easy-for-bachelors-to-open packaging.

"Hell's bells, if I'd known you could shoot _and_ cook like this, I would've popped the question years ago."

"And why haven't you?" Karrin questioned, blue eyes sparkling. "You're not getting any younger."

"I was waiting for you to ask me."

She snorted.

I sniffled. "What? This is the twenty-first century. Cops can ask wizards now, it's perfectly acceptable—"

She threw a saltine cracker at me, laughing so hard she started coughing, and I suddenly felt even more guilty for letting her take care of me when she clearly wasn't as over the flu as she claimed.

"Come on," she said, taking my hand, pulling me to me feet. "You can't sleep in the recliner. You don't fit. One good snore and it'll fall over."

"Where are we going? I don't snore— wait. Murph?" I stopped in the middle of the hall, grinning. "...Are you taking me to bed?"

She kicked me in the shin, but it was a perfunctory kick, and shouldered a door open. "I'm taking one for the team. Do you _know_ what will happen to my department if I let our golden moose die of the flu?"

I put a hand over my heart. "You wound me."

"Not yet, I haven't. Here." She pushed me toward her bed, which was an interesting concept. Her room was girly; it was done in pale colors and floral print and it smelled nice, but there were some very Murphy touches, like the black shotgun poking out from under the bed, and the antique rifle above the door. "And for the record, your brother is a terrible nurse. He'd be in there, doing some fake-tits jogger on your sofa while you're dying in your Spiderman sheets."

"For the last time, Karrin, I do not have Spiderman sheets. If you would just come over and check—"

"Right. That doesn't sound like a trap at all."

"And this isn't?" I asked, looking around.

One blonde brow arched wickedly. "You're the one who followed me in here."

"If you kidnapped me and brought me here to be your slave," I said, "I'm okay with that. But I'm not wearing the Princess Leia costume. I have standards."

She laughed and pushed me. My legs gave out and I landed on a bed much softer than my own.

"Get comfortable, Stilts." Murphy tossed a blanket over me, sat on the edge of the bed and put a cold hand on my forehead. "You're still feverish."

"Lieutenant, if I'm not dead in a few hours and you still want to take advantage of me, go for it."

"I don't think you realize what you're signing yourself up for."

"A mercy killing." The second my head hit the pillow, my eyes slammed shut like garage doors. "You could be my tiny little angel of death."

Murph patted me on the cheek. "Grow a pair, Dresden, it's just the flu." I heard her yawn. "I think I'm gonna sit down...just for a minute."

I felt her settle down, a slight weight next to me. I hadn't been in the same bed as a woman in longer than I wanted to think about, not that I was doing very much thinking in a brain-aching, half-conscious daze.

When I opened my eyes an hour later, my tiny little angel of death was snoring with a Terry Pratchett book on her face. I moved the book – that took all the energy I had left – and she grabbed my hand and mumbled my name, something about vampires and being out of ammo and _stop laughing, Dresden, you'll give away our position. _

I grinned. She didn't let go of my hand.

I woke again to a black room, a _"What the fuck!"_, the sound of the hammer of a gun being drawn and a slender female form flattening herself against my chest. I woke with a start, tearing the amulet from my neck with the hand that wasn't holding the woman against me, calling light to it.

I kind of...overdid it.

The ceiling light lit up for a split-second and went out with an audible pop, even though it wasn't on. In the brief flash I saw a shadowy form at the foot of the bed and Karrin, pointing a snubnose revolver at it, her back against my chest. The clock radio on the bedside table squawked to life. A car alarm went off next door, wailing pitifully for a few seconds before dying.

The shadowy form at the foot of the bed barked, eyes glowing in the blue light of the amulet, and leapt onto the bed, standing over both of us.

It licked Karrin's face and then mine.

"Dammit, Mouse! Look at your life. Look at your choices!"

"Oh god," said Murphy, cringing and laughing at the same time. "It's just the dog."

"Wow." I shooed Mouse off the bed, took the gun out of her hand and let the hammer down. "I'm so glad you're here to protect me from the big bad...cuddly puppy."

"He _licked_ my _foot_. And then my _face_."

I shrugged. "He likes you."

"Oh," she said, slipping away from me. She sat next to me for a moment, tense. We didn't look at each other. And then we did.

"I'm gonna—" She wiped at her face with one hand and then headed for the bathroom.

I ruffled Mouse's ears and he followed me down the hall into dark kitchen. I let him out the back door, reached for the phone and dialed a number, then put on my boots and coat and got his leash out of a pocket.

He was still running in circles in the backyard so I leaned on the doorframe and watched. The light in the alley cast a blueish hue to the snow. It was brighter outside than inside.

Karrin snuck up on me. I don't think she meant to. I twitched when she put a hand on my arm.

"I'm sorry. I must have passed out while I was reading." Her punky hair was rumpled and she was still blinking and sleepy. It was cute. She looked me over. "You're not leaving, are you?"

…Which my libido immediately mistranslated as 'take me to bed or lose me forever,' because it obviously took a goddamn correspondence course in understanding women.

I glanced at the red LED clock on the microwave. It flickered nervously. "It's three in the morning."

"Holy shit."

"Yeah."

"I guess I was more tired than I thought."

"I guess so."

She stared up at me, sleepily. She wet her lips.

I had a momentary urge to pick her up and carry her back to bed, except it wasn't so momentary and a little bit more than an urge.

Mouse – I peered out the door at him – was still running in excited, snowy circles. He stopped, shook, barked once and started running again.

I could leave him out there for a while. He'd be okay, he's from Tibet or somewhere.

The light spilling through the open door rendered everything in Casablanca grayscale. Karrin was still looking up at me, blue eyes drowsy.

Unthinking, I reached out and brushed her hair from her eyes, tucking the long strands behind her ear. She turned into my hand but looked away, down, pale eyelashes against moonlit skin. I knew her face almost as well as my own, if not better, since I try not to look in the mirror too often. There was a dimple in her left cheek, even when she isn't smiling. Laugh lines at the corners of her eyes. A few freckles at her temple. It was starting to sound like a list of places to kiss. It was starting to sound like an interesting idea.

I thought about it a second too long and the sound of a car horn made us both jump.

She glanced toward the door.

"I called a cab," I said.

_Belay that cab,_ screamed my sad and neglected sex life.

"Oh." Rapid-fire emotion flickered across her features – something that might have been disappointment, a mask of neutrality, a concerned smile. Karrin bit her lip. "Well, don't let Thomas give you any medication, he'd probably get it mixed-up and give you X or something."

"...Yeah, that sounds about right."

She took Mouse's leash from my hand and let him in. "If he does, call me, because that's bound to be hilarious before ...you know, you actually need a cop."

We both smiled. She stepped into the space between us and hugged me, arms slipping beneath my coat, she leaned her forehead against my chest. We stood that way for a while. I'm not sure how long.

The driver of the cab honked again and I pulled away.

"Feel better," she said, handing me the box of Kleenex. "I'll call you."

Mouse and I trudged outside, through the naked rosebushes in the front yard, out the gate and to the waiting cab. I gave the driver my address.

He eyed me and my giant puppy and my box of tissues in the mirror.

"Valentine's date didn't go like ya planned, huh?"

I blinked at him.

"Valenti—oh, for the love of—" I groaned and slumped against the window. "Was that _today?"_

The cabbie was laughing at me. Mouse made an unsurprised huffing noise. I turned a narrow-eyed stare toward him.

"You know, you could have said something."

He thumped his tail against the seat and stared solemnly at me, as if to say, _"I tried."_

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><p><em>be my reviewing valentine?<br>_


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